If your country suffers from poverty also, what are you doing here? By Marcos Macal Exchange Guatemala - Tanzania
Every day I walk to my work, I do the best I can with the work that I have and the tools that I posses. In some occasions when I finish my work I walk and get lost in Mwanga, sometimes I find people and start to talk with them. They usually think that I am from some place in Europe or the United States, when I say Latin America or Central America; they only hear the word AMERICA. So they usually think that I count with a large amount of money. I explain to them the situation back in Guatemala and Central America, always when I finish is the same questions. What are you doing here? Your country suffers like these one and it’s a third world country. Why did you come and help? Why do you come to work here? It would seem that in the mind of many people, helping depends on the amount of money. To my simple criteria, helping depends on the intention of wanting to help. If we, the third world countries have similar sufferings, is it possible that together we might find solutions? I think so; it’s just a matter of REALLY wanting to help us one and another. I don’t think that suffering can be put in terms of quantification and that this problem can be solved only from a monetary point of view. If well, it’s true that we need money to make charity works. We also need good intentions, intellectual and moral capacity to make this work come true. I have said it before, if we´re really to change as a society, country and world, first we have to start changing as people. What can I offer the world? What can I find in myself that can change in order to help others and me? Change exists and it will be possible, but e main question is; do we really want to change? If the answer is yes, then this question follows it, what are we willing to do to REALLY change? It’s not enough just wanting to change, we have to work for it and that will never be an easy task.
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